Farm houses, hundreds of acres of agricultural and industrial lands across states and shares and debentures worth more than Rs 5,000 crore have been attached under the anti-money laundering law in an alleged bank loan fraud case against an insolvent automotive equipment manufacturing company, the ED said Saturday.
The action comes after the federal agency arrested Amtek Group promoter Arvind Dham in July.
The company is under liquidation.
The Enforcement Directorate booked a case against the company and its promoters under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, taking cognisance of a CBI FIR and a direction issued to it by the Supreme Court in February to probe the case.
The IDBI Bank and the Bank of Maharashtra had filed a CBI complaint against the accused for "illegally diverting" bank loans and causing loss to these lenders, the ED said in a statement.
The bank "fraud" is estimated to be about Rs 27,000 crore.
Companies of the group like Amtek Auto Limited, ARG Limited, ACIL limited, Metalyst Forging Limited and Castex Technologies Limited along with other concerns were taken to insolvency, whose resolution had led to "huge haircut" of more than 80 per cent for the banks causing "substantial" losses to these public sector banks, it claimed.
Probe found that the financial statements of the group companies were "deceitfully manipulated" to obtain additional fraudulent loans and create bogus assets and investments in the books of accounts, the ED said. -- PTI